09. Congratulations, Dianne Bergsma

Revisiting Bathsheba and David:
A Recuperative reading with Julia Kristeva

Dianne’s thesis is not the typical philosophical study comparing,
contrasting, evaluating solutions to certain theoretic problems. Rather, in
the conviction that philosophy is a spiritual exercise, a way of life,
Dianne set out to explore the possible help the conceptual lenses of
feminist philosopher-psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva could offer in revisiting
the Biblical story of Bathsheba and David. Her goal was to discover if,
employing Kristevan ideas, new understandings of an old biblical story
would shed some light and insight on our efforts in the 21st century to be
women and men of integrity.

Two Kristevan ideas in particular were of great benefit in her
re-reading of the story of Bathsheba and David. First, Kristeva’s recognition that
the semiotic is as fundamental to language as the symbolic. That is,
words do not only denote, identify, and distinguish conceptually, but
resonate with affect, drives, and feeling, creating an ambience, a mood. Words
are suggestive, allusive, evocative, reproving and censuring, creating an
atmosphere often as much by what is not said as by what is said.

Second, Kristeva’s emphasis on the importance, in reading, of bearing
ethical witness to the unethical, and the imperative need for a her-ethics,
or herethics, which goes beyond and through law to Love. The overarching
need for an ethics of love is crucial because, even today, just as in the
time of Bathsheba, an ethics based on law is often detrimental to women.
Just as women in the biblical narrative were silenced, raped,
dishonored, their subjectivity disregarded, their voices silenced, so even today
sexual violation as a weapon of war continues unabated. Dianne’s study
again reminds us in no uncertain terms that we simply cannot sit silent
while women are systematically subjected to sexual abuse.

I served as Dianne’s promoter and Dr. Loes Derksen of the VU University
Amsterdam was the co-promoter. The panel of examiners consisted of Prof.
dr. Wouter Goris and Dr. Annemie Halsema from the VU, Prof. dr. Mieke
Bal and Dr. Christa Stevens from the University of Amsterdam, and Prof. dr.
Anne Marie Korte from the University of Utrecht. Congratulations, Dr.
Bergsma! It was a pleasure to work with you.